


pure and complete joy

by elumish



Series: those who form his fire-side [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: Gen, Goa'uld (Stargate), Jewish Character, Long Lost/Secret Relatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29369769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: The next time John gets leave is over the winter holidays.
Relationships: Abbey Bartlet & John Sheppard, Abbey Bartlet/Jed Bartlet, Jed Bartlet & John Sheppard, Zoey Bartlet & John Sheppard
Series: those who form his fire-side [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157402
Comments: 51
Kudos: 142





	pure and complete joy

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings in end notes.

The next time John gets leave is over the winter holidays.

He doesn’t want to take it, but McKay threatens to lock him out of their systems and Elizabeth gives him a  _ look _ , and he finds himself with the passel of scientists and marines waiting in front of the gate for their once-a-quarter get-as-many-people-through-the-gate-as-fast-as-they-can exercise.

They tried to use the ships as much as they can for human transport, because of the power drain, but the ship isn’t always around when they need it, and for short leave it takes too long to take it both ways.

He’s leaving Lorne in charge, and he trusts Lorne to take care of the city, but John hates leaving. Not just because there’s nobody as good with the chair as he is, if it’s needed, but because his brain always feels a little bit empty when he’s away from Ancient tech for too long, like there’s a gap with something rattling around in it, like he’s been scooped out, hollowed out, made empty.

He’s never told anyone that, so it’s a bit of a surprise when McKay walks up next to him five minutes before they’re set to leave and slips something round and solid into his hand. “It’s just a paperweight,” McKay tells him, “but try not to lose it. And try to avoid telling the SGC that I gave it to you, because theoretically I’m not supposed to be doing that.”

“McKay?”

McKay’s face does something awkward and twitchy, and then he mutters, “Carson said he gets headaches when he’s away from Ancient tech for too long after being here. Just bring it back.”

That’s oddly kind and conscientious of McKay, but if John calls him out on it, he’ll get weird, so John just says, “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” McKay mutters, and hurries back up to where Elizabeth is waiting.

John slips the paperweight in his pocket with a smile.

\--

They’re stuck quarantining for 24 hours, and John spends about 19 of those hours debriefing Col Carter and Gen Landry on the situation in Pegasus. He manages a full three hours sleep by clutching the paperweight in his hand, and he has one very unpleasant meal in the mess with every eye on him.

“I guess my identity is still of interest to people,” John mutters to Col Carter as she sits down next to him at the most out of the way table in the mess.

She laughs, gesturing for Dr. Jackson to join them. He’s with Teal’c, and the two of them sit across from John and Col Carter. “I don’t know what you were expecting,” she says.

John shakes his head. “Nobody on Atlantis follows the news,” he tells her. “I’m pretty sure half the city hasn’t found out yet, and other than Rodney giving me cold showers for a month for not telling him beforehand, nobody has talked about it. My team is made up of two aliens and Rodney McKay.”

“Do they not have the concept of children of heads of state in the Pegasus Galaxy?” Dr. Jackson asks around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

“They don’t have the concept of countries,” John tells him. “I’m not sure how most planets are here, but the Wraith have culled nearly all populations to the point of being just above extinction levels. All the Wraith care about is leaving enough for a population to sustain itself. Most planets only have one tribe or, at best, a city. The idea of having enough people to warrant multiple governments, much less actually  _ having _ multiple governments, is beyond them.”

“What do they think about the flags, then?”

“They think it’s some sort of Earth eccentricity that they humor because they like us.”

“The country divisions are similar enough to Goa’uld leadership to be understandable from a Jaffa standpoint,” Teal’c says, “though I will admit that I was discomfited to learn of the population of this world.”

“Yeah,” John says, “Teyla thought I was lying when I told her we had six and a half billion people.”

“She’s an Athosian?” Dr. Jackson asks. At John’s nod, he asks, “How many Athosians are there?”

“Elizabeth would have the exact number,” John says, “but I think the last estimate was around three hundred.”

“On Atlantis?” Dr. Jackson asks.

“Total.”

“Christ,” Col Carter breathes. 

“Do you have any plans for the holidays?” Dr. Jackson asks, in the least subtle subject change John has ever heard.

John isn’t sure he has a choice in the matter, given that there’s no chance the President doesn’t know he’s on leave now, but all he says is, “Anything will be better than the shit we had last year on Atlantis.”

“Did you do something special?” Dr. Jackson asks. He has the tone of an anthropologist wanting to know about a native population, and John thinks he would be offended if he didn’t find it so amusing.

“We had nominally a very non-denominational, international celebration, though given that the Marines did most of the work it still ended up very American and Christmas-focused. It wasn’t winter there, which made it a little weird, but we invited the Athosians and explained that it corresponded with the winter solstice back on Earth.”

“Do the Athosians celebrate the solstice?”

John shakes his head. “Their calendar is mostly lunar, from what Teyla’s said. Something about how the Wraith come at night.” He checks his watch--which is still on AST, shit--then asks, “Do any of the phones in here call out of the base?”

“There’s one in my office,” Col Carter says. “Why?”

John makes a face. “There’s a call I need to make.”

\--

Agents Ryan and Koh meet John at the NORAD entrance to the Mountain.

“I’m assuming there’s no chance of you letting me drive,” he says as they walk him out to the parking lot.

“No, sir,” Agent Koh says. She’s almost as tall as he is, and almost as broad, and she has the look of the sort of person he’d want on Atlantis with him.

“I am a pilot,” he reminds them. 

“Yes, sir.”

Well, it was worth a try. “How are we planning on getting to DC?” he asks them as they get into the black SUV. “I’m assuming there are military flights out of Peterson.”

Agent Koh glances back at him from the passenger seat, then says, “There’s a commercial flight out of Denver in three hours. We’ll be boarding through a private entrance, and we’ll be boarding and exiting first.”

“What kind of plane is it?”

“Sir?”

“The plane. What model is it?”

“A Boeing 777.”

“Three hour flight?”

“Yes, sir.”

John wishes like hell he could fly himself there--or, better yet, not go to DC at all, and instead fuck off to Hawaii or something--but that doesn’t really seem like an option in all this mess.

He doesn’t know his biological family, not really, but he has the sense that they would be hurt by him being on Earth for the holidays and not at least visiting them. He’s hoping beyond hope that he can get away with not doing the whole holiday shtick there, not least of which because he hasn’t celebrated a religious Christmas since he left home, and the last thing he wants to do is celebrate it with a bunch of devout Catholics.

His dad had tried the whole religious Christmas thing after his mom died, and John had hated every year of it, had hated the church and the ritual and the implication that his dad was glad, even in some small way, that his mom was gone.

Bringing that mess into his new family isn’t his idea of a good time.

The flight is mercifully short, and they take off more or less on time despite the storm front coming in from the west. He gets a few dozen stares, but being in the front of first class means very few people can get away with wandering up front to ogle him.

One of the agents speaks to one of the stewardesses when they board, and from what John can tell, she’s been assigned to be  _ his _ stewardess. Completely unnecessary, from his standpoint, when he’s used to military flights and puddle jumpers. 

He wants rather desperately to get drunk, but that seems like a spectacularly bad idea to do out in public. So he sticks with shitty airline coffee that somehow tastes like Atlantis almost-coffee that they resort to when real coffee supplies run low. 

\--

It’s just after 1600 EST when they land at DCA and John is escorted off the plane by his agents and an airport employee in a suit who looks way too important to be dealing with John. He offers them a cart to ride in, but John declines before one of the Secret Service agents can agree to it. That’s just a little too humiliating.

Especially because the car they’re getting in is about three hundred feet from the plane. The employee apologizes for the distance, but there was apparently an issue with a nearby gate.

The whole thing is absurd.

He wants to ask if it’s always this absurd, but he’s afraid the answer is yes.

They drive straight to the White House, and DC traffic is horrendous but it looks worse getting out of the city than getting in. The whole city is a logistical fucking nightmare, John thinks. There’d be nowhere to run if the Wraith came.

That’s a thought he doesn’t want to have, not ever, so he forces it back down. The Wraith are never coming here. He will never see American children taken by the Wraith.

In the White House, someone tells him the President wants to see him in the Oval Office. Someone else takes his bag of stuff. He feels very managed.

It really is a goddamn miracle, he thinks as he’s escorted through the West Wing towards the Oval Office, that they let him go back to Atlantis. He’s pretty sure the only reason is that they need a lightswitch more than they need the President’s unfortunate son hanging around.

He can’t make any bad press if reporters can’t get to him.

He’s greeted outside the Oval Office by the same kid as before--Charlie, he remembers, or something like that--who offers an apologetic, “It’ll be a few minutes.”

John shrugs, wishing he wasn’t wearing his dress uniform so he could stick his hands in his pockets. “No problem.”

“He’s in an NSC briefing,” Charlie explains. “Anything else, he’d interrupt for you.”

It really is no problem--it gives him a chance to fucking  _ breathe _ without an agent hovering two feet behind him--but he just shrugs again and takes to looking around what’s in the outer office. It looks very stately and very Earth-like in a way that nothing on Atlantis does.

It’s only a few minutes before the door opens and the goddamn Chairman of the Joint Chiefs comes out, and John comes to attention because, shit, that’s Admiral Fitzwallace, he’s fucking legendary.

He’s really hoping Admiral Fitzwallace won’t pay him any attention, but instead the Admiral stops in front of him, asking, “Colonel Sheppard, right?”

John nods. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ve heard good things about the work you’re doing,” the Admiral says. “Keep it up.”

John swallows. “Thank you, sir.”

The Admiral offers him a hand to shake, saying, “It’s good to meet you, Colonel.”

It’s a hell of a thing to hear from a four-star, given the shit that’s on his record, and he doesn’t care how much of it is about who his father is. Admiral Fitzwallace isn’t known for sucking up to anybody, so at least a sliver of it must have been the truth, and that’s all John needs.

Once the rest of the NSC has filed out, Charlie says, “You can go in.”

The Oval Office is no less terrifying than it was the first time he was here, and neither is the President, who at this point is sitting behind the Resolute Desk. It’s a hell of an image, no matter how related they are.

As the door closes behind John, the President looks up, then stands and strides over to him, smiling widely. He stops in front of him, saying, “Look at you. How was your flight?”

“Fine,” John says. “It would be better if I could fly myself here.”

The President laughs like he was joking. “Good luck convincing the Secret Service of that.” He seems to come to a decision, because he reaches forward and gives John a hug, and John hugs him back because he hasn’t had a hug from someone other than Teyla or Elizabeth in who the fuck knows how long, and what else is he going to do.

His father--Patrick Sheppard--wasn’t into physical affection between fathers and sons, and the military’s brand of manly affection has never been John’s thing. Ronon is more casual about it, less tied to machismo, but John has had a lot of years to learn not to touch people and not that long to learn that it’s okay to do so.

He might like his biological family, he thinks, if he can figure out how to.

The President is still smiling when he lets go, gesturing John over towards the couches. “We weren’t sure when you were going to get out of quarantine, so we didn’t get our hopes up that you would be here for dinner tonight. I’ll have Charlie ask the chef to make something special for you. Anything you want?”

A lot of whiskey, John thinks, but he shakes his head and says, “I’ve been eating the Pegasus version of almost-potatoes almost every meal for the last month.”

“So no potatoes, then.”

“Real potatoes are fine; they don’t taste like they have fur. My point is that I’ll eat anything.”

“Do I want to know how it tastes like it has fur?”

John makes a face. “Something about the cooking process, it changes the protein structure and makes it...furry. Baking it seems to work best, but it’s one of the best plant-based protein sources we’ve found, so we eat a lot of it.”

The President looks like he wants to comment on that, but instead he says, “I hope you’ll stay through Christmas, at least. We go to midnight mass, and I’d love for you to join us. I know you said you’re not Catholic, but you might enjoy it.”

Apparently there is no avoiding this conversation, so he says, “I think it’d be best if I don’t.” At the President’s raised eyebrow, he explains, “My Christmas has historically been more a movie and Chinese food than midnight mass.”

“You’re Jewish?”

“My mother was,” John explains, and he’s not sure if the fact that she wasn’t his biological mother changes anything in that regard. “When she was alive we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, for my father, and then on Christmas Day we saw a film and went to a Chinese restaurant, for her. We celebrated the High Holy Days when I was young, but…” He shrugs. “My father wasn’t interested in continuing the tradition. I haven’t practiced since I was a child, but I won’t go to Christmas mass. Sir.”

“Of course,” the President says, like it’s as easy as that. “Will you join us for dinner, either day?”

It’s not like he has any other plan, and it’s pretty clear it means a whole lot to them, so John says, “Sure. I have nothing against the holiday. It’s just the church bit I’m not too fond of.”

“Do you have any other plans before you head out again?” the President asks.

John shakes his head. “Go surfing somewhere, if I get the chance, but...everyone I know is on Atlantis. I didn’t leave a lot behind when I went through the gate.”

It wasn’t like he had made a lot of friends in Antarctica, especially not with everyone knowing he was sent there for disobeying orders, and he hasn’t talked to anyone he served with in Afghanistan since he was pulled out of there.

“Well,” the President says, “you’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The President stands, and John stands too. “I’m afraid I have another meeting,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight, for dinner.”

John only has one agent with him when he leaves the Oval Office--Agent Ryan, he thinks, the one who picked him up at Cheyenne Mountain who said basically nothing the whole time. Which is fine by John. He’s not really interested in making small talk at the moment. Mostly he just wants to get some sleep or, in lieu of that, drink some coffee.

They’re midway to the Residence when he hears the sound of a gun being pulled from a holster, and then a shot, and then his shoulder is  _ burning _ , and he moves on instinct, and the agent holding the gun is fast but John has been training with Ronon, and he has him disarmed and pinned to the floor because he can actively register what the fuck exactly just happened.

And then there are agents swarming  _ everywhere _ , and everyone is shouting,  _ crash the West Wing, get EMTs here now, _ and there are hands on him, too many hands, and he tries to pull away and say, “Jesus Christ, I’m fine.”

“You’ve been shot,” someone tells him, as though he couldn’t figure that out from the fact that his shoulder is fucking gushing blood, and he presses a hand to it and grits his teeth and stops fighting the people trying to get him to sit down because maybe he’s a little more lightheaded than he expected.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and then hands are pressing on his shoulder, and gauze, and it hurts like a  _ motherfucker _ . “Ow.  _ Shit _ .  _ Fuck _ .”

“Sir,” someone says, “we’re going to get you to the hospital right away.”

“Fuck,” he says again, as it feels like someone stabs a knife through his shoulder. “That hurts.”

“You’ve been shot,” someone else repeats.

“Yeah,” John says, “I got that part.”

“We’re going to get you on a stretcher,” someone says.

“I can walk,” John tells them, which would be true if the fifteen sets of hands on him would let him stand up.

“ _ Sir _ . Please let us get you on a stretcher.”

“A Secret Service agent shot me,” John realizes, and now he starts fighting in earnest against the hands on him, and that makes there be more of them, and he wishes he had backup, or a gun.

“Sir,” a vaguely familiar voice says, “I’m Ron Butterfield. I’m the head of the Presidential Detail. You can trust me.”

“I want a gun,” John says. His shoulder hurts like a son of a bitch.

“Please get on the stretcher,” Butterfield says.

\--

“At 5:04 pm,” CJ says, “Secret Service Agent Albert Ryan fired his weapon and struck Colonel John Sheppard in the shoulder. Agent Ryan was incapacitated within seconds and his actions are currently under investigation. Colonel Sheppard has been brought to George Washington Hospital, where he is currently being treated by Dr. Naveen Satapathy. Colonel Sheppard is undergoing surgery to remove the bullet and repair his shoulder. He is in stable condition. I’ll now take a few questions.”

The room interrupts into noise, and she picks on Julie, who asks, “Is there any indication of why Agent Ryan shot the President’s son? Was it targeted, or some sort of accidental discharge of his weapon?”

“We have no information at this time about the motivations behind Agent Ryan’s actions. The FBI and the Secret Service are conducting a joint investigation and will brief you when they have answers. Nancy?”

“Is the President at the hospital with his son?”

“The President and the First Lady are currently on their way to the hospital. Danny?”

“Is there any concern that the Secret Service can’t be trusted, in light of this shooting?”

“No.”

“C’mon, CJ,” Danny says loudly, over the noise of the crowd. “A Secret Service agent shoots the President’s son in the middle of the White House, and nobody is the least bit concerned about what that implies about the safety of the Secret Service?”

“The White House has full confidence in the Secret Service,” CJ tells him. “Julia?”

“Who took down Agent Ryan?”

CJ glances down at her notes, even though she doesn’t need them to answer this, then says, “Colonel Sheppard.”

\--

Leo is waiting for her outside the briefing room, and the first thing she says to him is, “That was a bloodbath. My ears are still ringing.”

“You’re not the only one,” he tells her as they walk. “Agent Butterfield is saying a lot of things to his people at a very elevated volume.”

“Any updates?”

Leo shakes his head, then says, “Surgery’s going well. They expect to have him out within the next couple hours, barring any complication. He was apparently still arguing with them that he could walk as he was being wheeled into the ambulance.”

“I heard that.”

“The President’s fit to be tied, and the First Lady isn’t much better.”

“The kids?”

“On their way here.”

“Is it bad that I’m glad that it wasn’t one of the girls, instead? That it was someone who knows how to take care of themselves?”

“Do  _ not _ say that to the President,” Leo says sharply. But then he sighs. “But I had the same thought. Have you seen the footage?”

CJ shakes her head.

“He’s...impressive.”

“Isn’t he a pilot?” CJ asks.

Leo looks around, then pulls her into the nearest unoccupied room, shuts the door, and says, “We both know he’s more than a pilot. Do what you can to keep the footage from getting out. We don’t want them asking questions about his combat history.”

“Aren’t pilots taught to fight in case they’re shot down?”

Leo shakes his head. “Not like this.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Leo nods.”I’m going to head to the hospital soon. Keep this under control.”

“I’ll do what I can,” CJ repeats, and hopes it’ll be enough.

\--

John wakes up in an infirmary bed with a dark-haired woman sitting next to him, and thinks, well this is familiar. He says, “I survive the Wraith only to get taken out by a gunshot to the shoulder. McKay will never let me live this down.”

“What are Wraith?” the woman asks.

Not Elizabeth, John thinks. He mumbles, “Enemy stealth planes,” and then he passes out again.

\--

Abbey thinks she might never take her eyes off her son again.

It’s a choice she’s made, to think of him that way, every time she sees him, because she forgets, sometimes. She forgets that she has four children, four living adult children. She forgets that this tall, half-familiar man is the baby she lost all those years ago.

She leans over to brush a piece of sweat-damp hair out of his face, then resettles in her chair by his bedside, holding his hand. He doesn’t look quite as painfully thin as he did the first time she saw him, but wherever he’s stationed is clearly hard on him.

The door opens, and she looks up to see Jed standing in the doorway with Leo behind him. “How is he?” Jed asks quietly.

“He woke up briefly, about ten minutes ago,” she tells him. “I don’t think he knew who I was. His fever’s gone down, and his O2 levels look good.”

Jed walks over to put his hands on his shoulders, looking at John with her. She leans back against Jed, comforted by the feeling of him.

She will never be used to seeing her children in hospital beds.

“What has Ron Butterfield said?” Abbey asks Leo, who’s still standing in the doorway watching them.

Leo steps into the room, closing the door behind him. “He said a lot of things, very loudly, but the current operating theory is that the car accident Agent Ryan was in a few weeks ago was less minor than originally thought, and he has a traumatic brain injury. They’re running tests.”

Abbey nods, looking back at John. His eyelids are fluttering again, and then they open, and he blinks a few times.

“John?”

“I got shot,” he mumbles. His head tilts towards them, and he blinks a couple times before seeming to focus on her face. “You’re not Elizabeth Weir.”

That name is familiar, but she doesn’t know where she knows it from. “No.”

He blinks a couple times again, and then he stiffens, his jaw working. “You’re the First Lady. Shit. Sorry, ma’am.”

She really wishes he would call her something more familiar than ‘the First Lady’ or ‘ma’am’, but it’s a work in progress. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got shot.” He frowns. “Are you--is everyone okay?”

“Everyone else is fine, son,” Jed says.

“I don’t know...” He squints at Jed. “I don’t know White House procedure. I didn’t...” He turns his head to squint up at the ceiling. “Your infirmaries are very white.”

“I’ll go get a doctor,” Leo says, and slips back out of the room.

“You’re in GW Hospital,” Abbey tells him. She’s not surprised he’s confused, given the anaesthesia.

“Right,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “Hospitals.” He stiffens again, then turns towards the two of them again and says, “Sorry, ma’am. I’m...disoriented.”

“Understandable.”

Dr. Satapathy, the doctor assigned to John, comes into the room, followed by Ron Butterfield, cutting off Abbey before she can tell him that he doesn’t need to call her ma’am. She doesn’t expect ‘Mom’ from him, but even Abbey would be better than ma’am.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Satapathy asks as he checks the machines by John’s bedside.

“Fine,” John says. “Disoriented.”

“Pain, on a scale of one to ten?”

John looks up at the ceiling again. “Five.”

“You were shot.”

“I’ve been shot before. How bad is it?”

“You got very lucky,” Dr. Satapathy says. “If you stick with your PT, there’s no reason you shouldn’t regain full use of your arm. I assume you’ll be recovering with your family?”

“Yes,” Abbey says before anyone can say anything. “He will be.”

“I’ll make sure the White House doctors are given a copy of the post-op and recovery information.”

“Have the information sent to Dr. Lam at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, too,” John says hoarsely.

“Is that your primary care physician?” Dr. Satapathy asks. “I’m going to want to talk to them, too, because most of your records are redacted.”

“She’s as close as I can give you. She has access to my full medical records. I don’t know how much she’ll be able to give you, but it’s more than I can.”

“Thank you. I also wanted to let you know that we’ve been trying to contact your next of kin, but we haven’t managed to get him yet.”

John turns his head to frown at the doctor, then says, “I have to admit, I have no idea who’s listed as my next of kin.”

“It’s a Dr. Rodney McKay.”

John rolls his eyes. “Jesus, he must have changed the records. No, you’re not going to be able to get in contact with him.” He glances over at Abbey and Jed, then turns firmly away from them to say, “Put the President and the First Lady. Leave Rodney, but I should probably have someone who actually owns a phone.”

Jed’s hands tighten on Abbey’s shoulders, and he says, “Please.”

John twitches, and Abbey wishes she could see what’s on his face. She doesn’t know if he just said it because they’re there or if he’s uncomfortable with the idea of them being associated with him like that. But the thought that he’ll have them listed as his next of kin, it makes that hole that’s in her chest since that day in the hospital close just a little bit more.

“I’ll have the records updated,” Dr. Satapathy says. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“I’d like to talk to you,” Abbey says.

Dr. Satapathy nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” John says. He sounds tired.

“A nurse will be in soon.”

Dr. Satapathy heads out of the room, and Abbey stands and walks out with him. She sees Jed take the seat that she left empty.

\--

John really wishes he hadn’t asked to have the President listed as his next of kin.

Not that he has a better person to have listed, but Jesus Christ, he’s the President of the United States. Who’s now sitting next to him and not saying anything, and John can’t keep not looking at him just because he’s embarrassed.

He hasn’t had a family, a real family, in a long time, and fuck if there isn’t a part of him that wants to pretend that this means something more than obligation and whatever it is that describes the attachment when you find your long lost child.

They didn’t raise him. They don’t owe him anything, not really. There’s no point in getting used to whatever this is, when they’ll probably forget about him after he’s gone for long enough.

He’s lived without parents since he was eighteen. He should be used to it now.

“Sorry,” John offers, when the President continues to just stare at him.

“For being shot? If anything, I owe you an apology.”

John sits up, awkwardly propping himself up without using too much pressure on his free hand, which has an IV in it. The President leans forward to help him settle back against the pillows.

“Do we know what happened?” John asks once he’s more or less upright. His shoulder hurts, but it’s the half-muted pain of there being a lot of painkillers in his system, along with whatever’s left of the anaesthesia.

The President glances at the closed door to the hallway, then says, “He had a Goa’uld implanted in him.”

_ Well _ , John thinks,  _ shit _ .

“How?”

“He was in a car accident recently, and we think that was used as an opportunity to get the symbiote in him. The Secret Service is looking into it.”

“The agents in the hallway?”

“All cleared.”

“Any chance I can have a gun?”

The President laughs. “You can talk to Ron Butterfield about that one.” He leans back in his chair. “You don’t have to call her ma’am.”

John is definitely on too many painkillers to know what the President is talking about. “Sir?”

“And you don’t need to call me sir, either. Son, we’re your parents. Did you call your father ‘sir’?”

The President is the absolute last person John wants to talk to about his father, but not answering isn’t an option, so John just nods.

“Ah,” the President says. “Well, we don’t make our children call us sir or ma’am.”

But he’s the  _ President _ of the  _ United States. _

“What about a compromise,” the President says. “When I’m talking to you as the Commander in Chief, you’ll call me sir. The rest of the time, lose the sir, please.”

Frankly, John never calls anyone sir this much, but it’s different here. Even he has some reverence for the position.

“Abbey’s going to insist that you stay with us while you’re recovering. I’ve found it’s better in cases like this to just let her run things, because she’ll do it anyway, and it’ll just be more painful for all of us if you fight her on it. We’ll be out for Christmas Mass, but the good thing about the White House is there’s always someone around to help if you need. Do you want us to celebrate Hanukkah, as well?”

“You don’t need to do that. I haven’t celebrated so much as shabbat since my mom died.” And he doesn’t want his foray into practicing Judaism, if he ever goes back down that road, to be him and the Catholic First Family muddling through a holiday he only half remembers how to celebrate. It was never one of the holidays that they particularly cared about, and it’s been a long time.

“Can you tell me about her?”

“Hmm?”

“Your mother. Can you tell me about her?”

John swallows around a dry throat. His shoulder hurts. “She was beautiful. I mean, we all think our mothers are beautiful, when we’re children. She was tall. She liked math.”

The President’s eyes light up. “Math?”

“She had a math degree from Douglass that she never used, because she married my father. But she taught Dave--my brother and I when we were little.”

“That’s what your degree is in, isn’t it?”

John nods. “Math and then applied math.”

The door opens, and a nurse steps in with Ron Butterfield, who stands by the door with crossed arms and watches them. John is pretty sure Agent Butterfield hates him. He wouldn’t be the first; he won’t be the last. 

\--

John wakes up with a brunette woman next to his bedside, again, and everything inside his brain is painkillers, and he asks, “Elizabeth?”

“Good guess,” the brunette says, “but no, it’s Ellie.”

John blinks, and the woman resolves into the middle child, Ellie Bartlet, and he thinks, Zoey-Ellie-Elizabeth, and he blinks again and says, “Sorry.”

“I’m just impressed you remembered any of our names,” she tells him, “given the amount of pain medication you’re on right now.”

“I actually thought you were my coworker,” he tells her, because it’s  _ a lot _ of pain medication. “Sorry.”

“I’m not offended,” she tells him. She’s reading something, it looks like, or she was; it looks like a paper book. He doesn’t see a lot of books on paper anymore, at least not in Atlantis. “Mom’s getting some sleep, and Dad had to work. In case you were wondering.”

He wasn’t, but he appreciates her telling him anyway. “They volunteer you to keep me company?”

“I volunteered myself,” she says mildly.

“I don’t need--”

“You may not have figured this out yet,” she interrupts, and her voice is still very mild, “but we aren’t big on giving up on family members.” She smiles. “We’re Catholic. As far as my parents are concerned, they had nine months with you before they lost you. If my dad had the choice, he would be sitting here with you until you were out of the hospital, and then he’d go sit on you until you were healed to make sure you didn’t go anywhere.”

“But you,” he starts to say, and doesn’t know how to finish his sentence. Don’t need another person splitting your inheritance? That’s a rather presumptuous thing to say, even if he knows Dave was happy as could be, the day Dad made it clear he was writing John out of the will.

Not Dad.

Shit.

Ellie tells him, “Losing you broke our family in some truly fundamental ways. It’s not very often, at this age, that we get to gain an adult family member instead of losing one. You’re the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time.” She grins, suddenly, and it makes her look  _ familiar _ in a way that is distinctly unnerving. “Or you would be, if you would stop treating us like we’re the embarrassing relatives who showed up at your house and now won’t leave.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” John says. “Can I have some water?”

Ellie stands to pour him some water from a pitcher that’s...somewhere, and when she hands it to him, she says, “Believe me, you’re not the most embarrassing person in this family by any stretch of the imagination. My dad will recite every national park fact he knows to anyone who will sit still long enough for him to catch them. When I was eleven he decided that was old enough for me to learn calculus. I started crying an hour into the lesson because I didn’t understand how a point could have a slope. He insists on doing all of our taxes.”

John drinks his water from his position half-propped up on a veritable mountain of pillows and tries to pretend that this isn’t all weird as fuck. He can’t imagine Dave being happy to find out he had another sibling. And John…

John has spent most of his adult life trying to build himself families and failing miserably at keeping them safe. Lyle--

Well, that fuck up is written in black and white on his service record.

Having a family just handed to him feels like a trick, like they’re just going to snatch it away from him the second he gets comfortable.

But on the other hand, better to have loved and lost and all that shit. What did Tolstoy say? ‘Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.’

This genie is all the way out of its bottle; it’s not like any of this will go away if he just pretends that it doesn’t exist.

So he sits up a little more and asks, “Have any other embarrassing stories about your family? The first one to tell me gets to avoid the ones that involve them.”

\--

General O’Neill and Colonel Carter show up at the same time the President reappears, and John would think it was intentional if not for how surprised they look to be seeing each other. But the President is waving them down almost as soon as they stand at attention, and the room suddenly becomes very crowded with an extra four people in it, Ron Butterfield included.

Ellie looks between them, then says, “I guess that’s my cue.” To John’s surprise, she leans over to kiss his forehead like he’s a child before heading out of the room. His face feels very hot, and he decides to blame it on the gunshot wound if anyone asks.

“Well,” Gen O’Neill says once the door is closed behind her, “you look like shit, Sheppard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe try ducking next time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have anything?” the President asks, sounding fed up with the back and forth. He walks over and takes the seat Ellie had vacated. He lounges back in it and levels Gen O’Neill and Col Carter flat looks.

Gen O’Neill looks pointedly at Col Carter, who says, “Maybe, sir. We wanted to ask Colonel Sheppard a few questions first.”

The President waves a hand at the room at large, and Gen O’Neill takes that as a cue to walk over and ask, “Did he say anything, before he shot you?”

“You mean like whatever the Goa’uld equivalent is to ‘death to the West’? No.” John shrugs his good shoulder. “I heard him unholster his gun, which usually means something is going to shit. But he didn’t say anything between doing that and shooting me.” Something sparks in his memory, and he says, “I’m not sure I heard him say anything at all. I had a conversation with the other agent, but not with him.”

Col Carter nods like that’s what she was expecting. “We think he was a specially bred kind of Goa’uld, which acts as a sleeper. The person who’s infected is acting normally until something triggers it, and then they’re able to take over. The trade-off is that they’re not as good mimics of the original host--notably, in regards to speech. We’ve been hearing rumors about them from the Tok’ra for the last few months, but this is the first time we’ve seen one in action.”

“Any chance that there are more of them?” the President asks.

“Unlikely, sir,” Col Carter says. “From what we’ve been able to piece together, they’ve only managed to breed a few of them. It’s unlikely they’d waste more than one on Earth, especially knowing we have x-ray capabilities.”

“Why John?”

Col Carter makes a face at that, the kind of polite half-expression good officers make when they don’t want to give a superior officer bad news. “Our current line of thinking is that the combination of ‘associated with the SGC’ and ‘meeting with you’ made them think that he was of high strategic importance to the SGC.”

“Which he is,” Gen O’Neill adds, “just not in the way that the Goa’uld would care about.”

“Good to feel wanted,” John murmurs, and Col Carter suppresses a smile.

“Any idea how they got here?”

Col Carter says, “We’re looking into it, sir,” which means no.

“Thank you,” the President says, and like that, they’re dismissed.

Once they’re gone, the President turns to John and asks, “What do you think of her?”

Honestly, John tells him, “I think Colonel Carter is better at her job than most of us can hope to be at any job we will ever do.”

“I think so, too, though I like to think I do a pretty good job myself.” The President stares at the door that they just walked through. “She seems like the kind of officer we want to keep around so one day, if we’re lucky, she’ll be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. What were you and Ellie talking about?”

“Sharing family secrets,” John says, and the President smiles.

\--

“Colonel Sheppard was discharged from the hospital at 10:30 this morning to be transferred to the care of the White House medical staff. He is doing well and is expected to make a full recovery. The President and the First Lady want to thank the American people for their support during this difficult time.”

CJ’s hit with a wall of noise, and she calls on Greg, who asks, “What does this mean for the Colonel’s military career?”

“That’s not something I can comment on,” CJ answers. “I will reiterate that he is expected to make a full recovery. Chris.”

“Will he be joining the President for Christmas mass?”

_ He’s already been shot _ , CJ thinks,  _ isn’t that suffering enough _ . But all she says is, “Colonel Sheppard will be spending Christmas convalescing in the Residence and will not be attending Christmas mass. He will, however, be celebrating the rest of the holiday with the family. Danny.”

“Do you have any new information on why a Secret Service agent shot the President’s son?”

“I do not, and you will be briefed by the FBI when they have an answer for you.”

“CJ--”

“Danny, I don’t have anything to give you. The FBI will brief you. Do I look like the FBI to you?”

“You do not.”

“That’s right,” CJ says, “I do not, and so I do not know why you are asking me that. I’ll be back later with more updates. Thank you all.”

\--

Zoey throws up half an hour after hearing John was shot.

She would probably throw up sooner, but she’s bundled into a car and dragged back to the White House, and she thinks later that it’s a good thing they don’t tell her until she’s already there that it was a Secret Service agent because she probably would have fought them like hell if she’d known beforehand.

But then she gets to the White House and holes up in a bathroom and throws up everything in her stomach.

Too many goddamn people in her family have been shot, and she wishes her dad had never run for President in the first place.

But she has her anger and hand-shaking fear under control, until John walks into the Residence looking pale and bruised, and all Zoey can see is her dad after he got shot, and being in that car, throwing up and shaking and knowing  _ someone had tried to kill her _ , and her knees buckle and she goes down, and to her horror it’s John who catches her.

It’s with his good arm wrapped around her, and he moved faster than she would have thought possible, saying, “Whoa, you okay?”

Embarrassingly, Zoey starts crying. 

“I’m fine,” John says, helping her sit down in a chair. She clings on to his hand, and he lets her. “I’ve been shot before. I mean, um.” She’s crying harder now, because  _ they could have lost him before _ , and he seems to realize this isn’t a good line of conversation, because he says, “I’m fine, I promise.”

“Fuck,” she whispers through a tight throat, then mutters, “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad I said that.”

He laughs, and she wipes off the tears from her face and sniffles a little. This is super embarrassing, that he was the one who was shot and now he has to comfort her.

“Are you staying here?” she asks, finally letting go of his hand so she can scrub both hands over her face. It’s a good thing she’s not wearing any makeup right now, or her face would be even more of a mess.

John straightens out next to her, and when she pulls her hands away from her face she sees he looks even paler. Shit, she must have hurt him when he had to catch her. “For a little bit,” he says, rubbing at his shoulder. His arm is in a sling and she can’t tell how bad it really is. “I’m not sure the timeline on them sending me back to my base.”

“Not until you’re healed,” Mom says, striding over towards John. He looks a little nervous. “I am a doctor, you know.”

John makes a face. “There might be some extenuating circumstances.”

“John--”

“If they had had any other options on who to put as CO, they wouldn’t have promoted me to the job.” He’s standing stiff and still now, looking like he’s about to face a firing squad, and Zoey reaches out and grabs his hand again. He glances down at her and relaxes, just a little. “I’ll go where they order me.”

“Is there any chance they’ll send you there before you’re healed?” Ellie asks. She’s across the room, hovering near Dad, but Zoey can tell she wants to come over, too. They’re trying not to freak John out by crowding him too much, Zoey thinks.

She also thinks it’s not working too well.

“Transport there is infrequent,” John says, with a look at Dad. “They might not want to wait too long. I can’t really talk about it more than that.”

“Why you all insist on doing classified work,” Mom says, “I will never understand. I want to take your blood pressure.”

John looks down at Zoey like he thinks Zoey is going to save him. Which she absolutely is not. No good comes from getting between Mom and someone she considers a patient.

God help them when they were sick as children. Ellie getting appendicitis was hellish on so many levels.

“My blood pressure is fine.”

“Then there won’t be any problem when I take it.” In short order, Mom has John sitting, a blood pressure cuff wrapped around his arm as Mom presses two fingers to the inside of his wrist. John looks a little bit like he’s been hit in the head with something heavy.

Dad comes over to perch on the side of Zoey’s chair, resting his arm over her shoulders. She leans against him, letting some of her weight rest on him. God, she loves her family, for all that it’s insane.

“You doing okay?” he asks quietly.

Zoey nods. “I just wish you all would stop getting shot.”

“I’m right here with you on that.”

“Your blood pressure is a little high,” Mom says.

“I did just get shot,” John says, and his voice is just a little too glib for Zoey’s peace of mind. Or Mom’s, if her face is anything to go off of. “I’m fine,” John says, and he sounds the same as he sounded reassuring Zoey. 

It’s his  _ reassuring civilians _ voice, she thinks.

There’s a knock on the door, and then Leo sticks his head in. Dad stands and walks over to him, and Leo whispers something in his ear. It’s a scene Zoey has seen more times than she’s like to, and it always means that Dad is about to disappear off somewhere for hours.

But this time, he just nods, and then Leo says, “Colonel Sheppard, General O’Neill is here to speak to you.”

“Is this really necessary?” Mom asks. “Right now?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Leo says. 

John stands and heads out of the room with Leo, and as soon as the door is shut Zoey sags a little in her chair, feeling like she just ran a marathon.

“Yeah,” her dad says wryly. 

“Is he going to be okay?” Zoey asks. “He’s not--I mean, he’s going to be okay, right?”

“He’s going to be fine,” her mom says, in a tone like she’s going to make sure that happens. “And he’s not being deployed again before he’s healed.”

“Abbey--”

“Jed,” her mom says sharply. Zoey tries not to look at either of them. She hates watching them fight.

“It’s complicated,” her dad says.

“He can’t be the only person in the world who can do his job. He’s a lieutenant colonel, not the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

Her dad makes a face. “It’s complicated, and I don’t have as much say as you think I do.”

“You’re the President of the United States!”

“And what do you think it’ll do to his career if I’m seen to be putting my thumb on the scale? If the press gets wind of me stopping him from being sent back into a war zone just because he’s my son and I want him to be safe?”

“What’s so bad about that?”

“C’mon,” Ellie says, and leads Zoey out of the room. She can still hear them argue as they shut the door.

She hates listening to her parents fight.

\--

John spends Christmas Eve alternately sleeping and not-sleeping, his shoulder burning as he tosses and turns. He clutches the Ancient paper weight in his good hand, and it almost fills the hole in his head.

He has a fever, he thinks, caught somewhere between sleep and not where he feels like he has the wrong number of limbs, like the bug has latched itself onto his shoulder and is trying to drain the life out of him.

Someone is here, he thinks, Rodney-Ronon-Teyla-Elizabeth, but he’s in the wrong place, he’s in the wrong place, he can’t feel the hum of Atlantis, he’s been taken  _ he hasn’t been taken he knows where he is he knows where he is he knows where he is _

“John?” a voice says, a male voice, a voice he almost doesn’t know, and he bolts upright and reaches for a gun that isn’t there, and the voice says, “Calm, calm, you’re okay.”

“Where--” His shoulder is in  _ agony _ , and nausea rises in his throat, and he clenches his teeth so he doesn’t throw up. “Fuck. What happened?”

“Can I touch you, son?”

“Who--” John swallows. He hasn’t managed to get his eyes open, because everything hurts like a son of a bitch, and he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.

“It’s Leo McGarry,” the voice says, and John recognizes it now, and he doesn’t know why McGarry is in his bedroom but he’s pretty sure it means he isn’t being held hostage. “Jed asked me to look in on you. Do you need me to get a nurse?”

“I’m fine,” John grits out, even as he can feel the sensation of at least one of his stitches having come open. “Fuck. Yes. One of my stitches popped.”

John can hear him pick up the phone on John’s bedside--so weird, not to have an earpiece in--and say, “We need a nurse to Colonel Sheppard’s room, now.”

“I can go to the infirmary,” John says, more because he’s deeply uncomfortable with the idea of people coming to him in the fucking White House than because he really wants to get up right now.

McGarry laughs. “That’s not happening. We’re not having the President’s son go to the White House infirmary at midnight on Christmas Eve.”

Shit, right, it’s Christmas Eve.

John finally manages to get his eyes open, and Leo McGarry is sitting in a chair by his bedside in a full fucking suit and tie, looking somewhere between concerned and vaguely amused. “Aren’t you Catholic?” John asks, managing to prop himself up on the headboard of the bed so he’s not sitting hunched over in front of the Chief of Staff.

“I don’t mind missing Christmas Mass,” McGarry says. “Jed and Abbey would have stayed, too, if they had known you have a fever.”

“It started after they left.” John resists the urge to rub at his shoulder. He’s never been good at making conversation at the middle of the night, or while he’s hurting and feverish, but he searches around for something to say so they’re not just sitting here in silence. Finally, he settles on, “Have you known the, uh...have you known my parents for long?”

It feels odd, calling them his parents, but he’s too tired to figure out what he’s supposed to be calling them right now.

“Your father is one of my oldest friends,” McGarry tolds him. “He’s the best man I’ve ever known.”

Nothing like expectations he won’t be able to live up to. But that’s been his entire life, and at least Jed Bartlet has never hit him.

“Will you be honest with me?”

“Of course.”

John swallows. He can hardly think past the throbbing in his shoulder and the way his head feels like it’s filled with cotton. “Is my being here making his life more difficult?”

“Did anyone say that it was?” McGarry asks, and he sounds angry. Angrier than John would have expected from someone who should have the President’s best interests in mind.

John turns the Ancient paperweight over in his hand, trying to focus, and says, “No, nobody has said that to me.”

“Good. Because it’s not. Losing you made his life more difficult. Any part of his life that has you in it is easier.”

“But politically--”

“To hell with the politics,” the President’s Chief of Staff says.

And that’s when a nurse comes bustling into the room, which is just as well, because John has no fucking clue what to say to that.

\--

Jed hasn’t slept well in at least a decade, so he’s not surprised that he beats Abbey and the girls to the kitchen in the morning. He is a bit surprised that he’s not the first one there; John is sitting hunched over in one of the kitchen chairs, rocking the domed end of something back and forth on the table.

“Did you sleep well?” Jed asks, even though Leo told him about John popping a stitch in the middle of the night.

John looks up at him, and he looks too thin and almost bruised, shadows under his eyes dark against too-pale skin. He doesn’t look like he’s slept well in a long time. 

“Funny enough,” John says hoarsely, “being shot isn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep. I tried to make coffee, but you have the most complicated coffee machine in the world.”

“What about in the universe?” Jed asks, because he can’t help himself.

John looks startled, just for a second, and then he says, “The ones in the city have to deal with a root vegetable, so I think they’re a bit more complicated. But the advantage of being CO is that I never have to make a new batch of coffee.”

“A root vegetable?”

John glances at the door, then says, “It’s what we use when we’ve run low on actual coffee. Some of the scientists figured out how to extract something from it that has a pretty comparable level of caffeine to coffee, and the flavor isn’t too bad. It also has mild analgesic properties, but we haven’t figured out how to get the analgesic without getting the caffeine, too. It was a pretty high priority, once we started running low on coffee--nobody wants to see the scientists  _ or _ the marines without their caffeine.”

“Do you want some, then?” Jed heads over to the coffee maker, which he’s gotten more than one tutorial on from unsuspecting Residence staffers. “We have real coffee beans, I promise.”

“Please,” John says.

Jed starts the coffee--a process nearly as complicated as initiating the nuclear football--then grabs a couple of apples and pulls out some peanut butter. He fancies it up with a couple of plates and some spoons, then carries the whole thing over to the table. “I hope you’re not allergic to peanut butter,” Jed says. “Or apples.”

“No to both, but I do only have one working hand.”

The part of Jed that has wanted his son desperately for the last few decades delights in being able to cut up the apple and core it and present it to John with a large spoonful of peanut butter.

And then the coffee is done, so he goes and pours two cups, then carries them back to place one in front of John.

“Thank you.” John takes a long drink. “There’s nothing like real coffee.”

“Is everything going well, there?”

John stiffens, and then he meets Jed’s eye and relaxes a little. “It’s going as well as it ever is. Morale is complicated when we’re so isolated. It’s the same problem as Antarctica has, once it gets cut off for the winter.”

“Anything we can do to help?”

“More coffee.” John smirks and takes another sip from his mug. “Nothing that  _ you  _ could do. If I never have to deal with the IOA again it’ll be too soon, but I think that’s out of even your hands.”

“And nobody gives you any problem for being my son?”

“My friends gave me some shit, but...no offense, sir, but you’re not the highest authority over there.”

“And who could possibly be a higher authority than me on a military base?”

“Well, sir,” John says, crunching on a slice of apple, “usually me.”

“I feel like I should be offended by that,” Jed tells him. “Should I be offended by that?”

“If you show up, you’ll be the highest authority, at least to the Americans. But they care about the people they see giving orders.”

“And that’s you.”

John shrugs. “Until someone drags me out of there, it is.”

“You like it there?” Jed asks, even though he knows the answer. He needs a reminder that he shouldn’t drag his son back to Earth and make him stay, just so John can be a little closer to him. So Jed can worry, just a little bit less, that John won’t die on some godforsaken planet in some other galaxy and Jed won’t even know it.

But John smiles and says, “I have never loved a place more.” He rolls the thing he’s holding between his fingers. “I don’t know if you have the ATA gene, but if you ever feel the humming of it, a whole city  _ alive _ ...”

He shakes his head, downing the rest of his coffee.

“It sounds beautiful,” Jed offers.

“Yeah,” John says, shaking his head. He stands and walks over to get more coffee. “General O’Neill said they want to put one of their people on me instead of the Secret Service.”

“They’re welcome to fight that out with each other.” There’s a noise in the doorway, and Jed turns to see Zoey standing there, blinking blearily at the two of them. “Good morning.”

“Coffee?”

“I’ll get you a cup,” John says, and Zoey startles like she hadn’t realized he was there.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, and stumbles over to sit down next to Jed. “‘s really early.” She squints at John. “Shouldn’t you be jet lagged? Why are you up so early?”

“Practice,” John says, setting the two mugs of coffee he has in one hand down in front of her. He pulls his mug over towards his seat.

“Urgh,” Zoey says, and starts on her coffee.

John smiles at her.

\--

Dinner that night is the sort of fancy shit that they used to do with his family, multiplied by a factor of ten. Not a hair out of place, not a knife askew, everything coordinated to the moment.

It’s only the six of them and Elizabeth’s husband and kids, which makes it all the more ridiculous, but John has sat through enough of these performative dinners not to bother thinking too hard about it.

He’s expecting ham or whatever Christians eat on Christmas, so it’s a surprise when the first thing brought out after the Bartlets say grace is the fanciest bowl of egg drop soup he’s ever seen. It’s garnished with corn and what looks like tofu, and it’s in a small bowl of delicate china with a traditional Chinese soup spoon.

“We wanted you to have your tradition too,” Abbey says, smiling at him, as John stares down at the soup and tries not to look too baffled.

“I realized I never asked if you kept kosher,” the President says. “But the kitchen did its best.”

“I don’t,” John says, and gets his shit together enough to eat some soup. It’s good. “My mom never kept kosher.”

“So,” Abbey says brightly, “congratulations again on your promotion. How is your new position?”

“It’s the same work,” John explains, “just formalized now. I had had what amounted to a battlefield promotion, and the choice was either formally promoting me or putting someone else in my place.”

“It must be more money, at least,” Elizabeth’s husband says.

John...had not thought about that fact. He knows a lot of service members are always on the edge, moneywise--they have spouses at home who find it more difficult to hold a job because they keep moving, they have children, they have houses and cars and all those Earth things most people have--but John has always had a decent bank account and basically no dependents, and now he has nothing to take care of on Earth.

He supposes he isn’t getting Polar Region Flight Operations Duty pay anymore, but he’s presumably still getting flight pay and whatever HDP-L they give for Atlantis.

“Yeah,” John says finally, when he realizes everyone is looking at him. “The promotion came with a pay raise.”

“And where are you stationed, again?” Doug asks.

“Classified.”

“I’m sure you can--”

“It’s classified,” John says, a little too sharply.

“It would be quite awkward if I had to have John arrested for sharing state secrets,” the president says.

“Can you tell us anything about working there?” Zoey asks. “Wherever there is?”

“I…” John isn’t sure what he can say that won’t be classified, entirely incomprehensible, or a complete lie. 

“You mentioned Elizabeth Weir earlier,” Abbey prompts. “You work with her?”

Of course these people know who Elizabeth is. “She does some diplomatic work for us,” John says, because that’s basically the truth. “Some negotiations with the natives, securing alliances.”

“And you expected her to be sitting by your bedside?” Abbey asks with a smile.

John can’t really explain that John being in the infirmary means that something has actively gone to shit, so he says, carefully, “We’re friends.”

“She is a beautiful woman.”

Oh, fuck. John knows where this is going. “She is.”

“And quite intelligent.”

“It’s not recommended to date coworkers,” John says, to cut this off before it can get too far. 

“But if you never date coworkers--”

“Let him eat his soup,” Ellie says. “He doesn’t need you interrogating him.”

“I’m just asking about his coworkers,” Abbey says with feigned innocence. 

John eats some more of his soup while he has the chance. He hadn’t been prepared for someone asking about his love life--or lack thereof. There hasn’t been anyone who really gave a shit in basically forever.

Lyle used to give him hell for being so unromantic--Lyle had been a true romantic, married to his high school sweetheart and so in love with her it made John ache just to be near him sometimes--but nobody has ever really been actively invested in his relationship, not since divorcing Nancy had been the last straw when it came to his father.

Patrick Sheppard.

John finishes his soup.

\--

“How was your Christmas?”

“Stupendous,” the President says, leaning against his desk. He does look happy, Toby thinks--happier than Toby would have expected given that Sheppard was shot a few days ago. “You’ll get a kick out of this--we had Chinese food for dinner on Christmas.”

“Trying out a new recipe, sir?”

“Trying to make John feel a little more at home.”

That’s...not what Toby expected. “He’s not Chinese,” Toby says, stupidly, before he puts everything together in his head. “He’s Jewish?”

“He is.” The President smiles. “We didn’t quite manage a movie, but Chinese food seemed like a nice compromise.”

“Get takeout next time,” Toby suggests. “Nothing says Jewish Christmas like lo mein out of an oily takeout container.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the President says, in that tone that indicates he’s not going to. Which is fair. Toby can’t really imagine him eating takeout for Christmas. “Now, what do you have for me?”

\--

“Here’s the deal,” Gen O’Neill says, sitting across from John in a SCIF somewhere in the bowels of the White House. For some reason, the President doesn’t seem big on letting John out of the White House at the moment. “You’re not getting on the next Daedalus trip.”

“Sir,” John says, chewing on a lot of other words he wants to say, “I can serve in Atlantis with my arm like this.”

“Whether or not I agree with you,” Gen O’Neill says, in a tone very much like he doesn’t, “they’re not letting you off-planet for at least another two weeks, and we can’t hold the ship for that long. Once you’re cleared by the doctors, I get to have a pissing match with some very irate agents from your protection detail and possibly some generals regarding where you’re stationed until the Daedalus’s next trip.”

John can’t imagine being stuck in DC for that long. “I’m going to lose my mind,” he says. “Sir.”

“Yeah,” Gen O’Neill says, sounding vaguely sympathetic. “Well, spend some time with your family. See the sights. Don’t do anything that would require them to call me.”

“They can’t TDY me somewhere?” John asks, a little plaintively.

“I think the President would have me assigned to Antarctica if I did.”

“Antarctica isn’t that bad.”

“Speak for yourself.” Gen O’Neill stands, and John stands too. “If I get chewed out because they find you doing so much as paperwork without being cleared, I’m letting them send you back to Atlantis with a Secret Service agent.”

\--

Zoey is lying on the couch trying to get through the first page of her physics textbook for next term when the door opens. She doesn’t even need to be reading the damn thing yet, but she is in no way prepared for this class she’s only taking because she needs a science and biology was all full.

It would look bad if the President’s daughter failed physics.

“I’m going to fail physics,” she tells whoever just walked in, which is probably Ellie because Elizabeth is back in New Hampshire with Doug.

But it’s John who says, “What part are you going to fail?”

“Jesus,” Zoey breathes, bolting upright. She drops her book on her legs. “Sorry. I wasn’t--hi.”

John eases himself down into a chair, making a face, then asks again, “What part are you going to fail?”

“I haven’t actually started it yet,” Zoey admits. “But all of it, probably. I’ve been putting off taking it, but I have to get it done next semester.”

“I can help, if you want,” John offers. “Not once I’m back where I’m stationed, but it looks like I’ll be here for a couple weeks at least.”

“That’s--” Zoey has a complicated relationship with her siblings--everyone in her family has a complicated relationship, made far far worse by her dad being the president--but maybe she can make this relationship work. “Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”

John nods, grimacing a little. He looks like he’s in pain, which makes sense. She doesn’t want to say anything about it, because her mom is kind of smothering him, and she doesn’t want him to think they’re all like that.

So instead, she asks, “What do you do when you’re not working?”

That gets a laugh, though she’s not entirely sure why. “There’s not a lot of time spent not working, where I’m stationed.”

“Even Dad has hobbies.”

“Fair,” he concedes. “I golf and surf, when I can. And I read, theoretically.”

“Only theoretically?”

“They do make sure you’re literate before letting you become an Air Force officer.” John smirks at her. “I’ve been working my way through  _ War and Peace _ .”

“How’s that going?”

John makes a face that makes him look so much like Elizabeth. “I think I’m on page twenty-three.”

Zoey laughs. “A real page-turner, then.”

That gets another smile, and she takes pride in the fact that she can make her long-lost brother smile. He seems like he doesn’t smile enough as it is.

And he’s too thin. Not as thin as he was when she first saw him, but still thin, and he looks...hunted.

“Do you like your job?” she asks before she thinks better of it, and he blinks at her, looking startled. “I just mean, you don’t look--I don’t know you very well. Never mind. It was a stupid question.”

He looks at her for a long moment, and then he says, “I do.” He gestures towards her with his chin. “You want help with the physics?”

“Yes, please.”

John stands and walks over to her, and she shifts so he can sit next to her, his uninjured side to her. He’s warm against her, and she lets herself lean against him, just a little, when she moves the textbook over so he can see it too.

Her brother is here. She’s never felt so lucky in her life. 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: non-fatal shooting, hospital/medical stuff
> 
> This took forever to write, but it's finally done! Let me know if there's anything else you want to see in this world. I'm not wedded to telling any particular story in it thus far.
> 
> Take a breath and keep going. We'll get through this.


End file.
